The Key to Opinion Writing? Know What You're Talking About

By Doug White
Online Reporter

To write effective and thought provoking editorials students need to do their homework.

Lots of it.

That's what Erin Kane did last November before she wrote an editorial about apathy among younger voters for The Catalyst, the student newsmagazine of Wheeler High School, in Marietta, Ga.

Her hard work paid off.

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution also published the piece, and Kane's editorial went onto win a Quill and Scroll International Writing Award among others.

Kane said she was successful because of the extensive research she conducted to make sure the piece was "grounded in fact."

"I didn't want to rattle off statistics, but I wanted to know what I was talking about," Kane said. "A lot of time students just go in there and think that with editorials you can just say whatever you want and do no work, no interviews and no research."

But writers must seek the same level of accuracy for opinion pieces that they do for news stories, said Poynter ethics faculty member Keith Woods.

"An informed responsible opinion pays attention to facts," Woods said. "The consequence of being wrong can be much more profound than in a regular news story because you've judged a person or issue."

Kane added that making judgments about a problematic issue does little if the author doesn't offer an alternative.

"Don’t just complain because people get sick of that," she said. "Give a solution or something you’d like to see happen."

Kane, 18, is now a freshman at Harvard University. Here is a copy of her award-winning editorial.

***

The Presidential Race: Younger Americans' Voices Muffled If We Don't Vote

By Erin Kane

Medicare, Social Security, taxes -- even a cursory glance at this election's hot topics reveals a truth about campaigns and presidential candidates. Campaigns target older Americans. There are 45 million Americans over the age of 60, and this group outvotes every other age block.

As a natural outgrowth of this reality, politicians are willing to give the elderly whatever they demand. Vying for support, candidates promise more prescription drug coverage and more comprehensive Medicare. The politicians cater to the elderly; there's nothing wrong with this.

The politicians work for what is best for the people, and isn't that what democracy means? Yet in the 2000 election, the main issues pertain to the elderly. The issues that matter to younger generations slip through the cracks.

And we let them.

Those issues are emphasized because the younger voters neglect to make their voices heard. Candidates are not going to waste their time and money winning support of "voters" who won't turn out to the polls in substantial numbers on Election Day. If voters under 30 researched the candidates, evaluated the issues and voted as a more uniform block, their issues would be the focus of every debate, the premise of every campaign commercial.

The majority of younger people refuse to care about politics for a couple of reasons. Mainly, they choose to believe that no matter who the president is, that person will have little or no influence on their life. They are worried about making an "A" on their first-semester midterm, or they are worried about their job interview; they are not worried about making time to visit a local church or elementary school to check some boxes in exchange for a sticker. Younger people suffer from myopic views and rarely see the importance of participating in national politics.

And yet, there are several national issues that should be of special concern to younger generations. The student too busy to vote might care about Bush's education reform plan or Gore's proposal for a tax break on tuition. The college graduate looking for a job has a vested interest in the future of taxes and Social Security. And someone who intends to be around 50 years from now might want to hear the candidates' opinion on environmental issues.

Those voters removed from the educational system are the youngest. Education has become a significant issue in the race, and voters have an opportunity to support an educational reform plan they believe will be most effective. Whether federal or state governments have more control, how a state's progress is monitored or how the quality of teaching professionals is evaluated, younger generations should be able to establish informed opinions on the subject of education.

Younger voters will care about Social Security. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security would drastically alter the face of retirement savings. Al Gore also wants to prevent the depletion of the Social Security fund, but he intends to use long-term interest saving to increase the longevity of the fund. Youth entering the work force in the next few years will pay part of their salary to Social Security. They must decide how they system should be regulated.

The new generation of the work force, as every generation before it, will care about taxes. Should the surplus, as George Bush advocates, be used to provide tax cuts? Should the surplus go toward the national debt which our generation will soon inherit?

The list of issues that affect Generation Y voters goes on and on. YouthVote 2000, an organization that works to encourage young people to vote, is one of many groups that have begun to take notice. MTV's Choose or Lose 2000 also targets young voters. In addition, the presidential candidates have spoken out on the issue of reaching young voters.

In the end, however, the responsibility lies with the voters themselves. For our issues to be important in the election, our votes must be valuable to the candidates. It is only then that we can have a significant influence on national politics.

If younger voters acted as a block and voted consistently on issues, we could address issues that pertain to us. The influence that a younger voting block could gain might eventually equate or even surpass that of the elderly.